NYT Calls Out MSNBC and CNN For Not Covering Alleged Rape Of 14-Year-Old Girl

Note to CNN and MSNBC: When even The New York Times notices that you’re burying a story, things are pretty bad.

That was at least one of the takeaways from a typically hand-wringing profile of Fox News in this weekend’s Times titled “One Nation, Under Fox: 18 Hours With a Network That Shapes America.”

One of the most shocking revelations, however, was that neither of the other major cable networks had devoted any space to the alleged rape in Maryland’s Rockville High School where two illegal immigrants stood accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl.

The piece involved Times writers John Koblin and Nick Corasaniti watching the “Fair and Balanced” network from 6 a.m. to midnight Thursday and writing up their impressions.

Translation: Koblin and Corasaniti had virtually no ideas when their weekly pitch meeting came around and had to wing it. And lo and behold, the Grey Lady published it. As someone who needs to read their rubbish for my job, I can write off my Times subscription on my taxes. What’s everyone else’s excuse?

Among their findings (which can be reduced to “Yep, they’re not as liberal as CNN or MSNBC, all right”), Koblin and Corasaniti inadvertently managed to throw the more liberal networks under the bus. They pointed out Fox’s coverage had “considerable time given to topics, like a rape case in Maryland, that viewers would not have heard about if they had turned to CNN or MSNBC. The rape case, which involved an undocumented immigrant and went virtually uncovered on most networks, received almost hourly updates on Fox, and at times was used as proof that (President Donald Trump’s) calls for tighter borders and a crackdown on immigration were justified.”

Yes, almost no coverage was given to the Rockville rape — a rather major case, given the sordid details and that fact that at least one and almost certainly both (if a report in The Baltimore Sun is accurate) of the suspects were in the U.S. illegally.

We’d already pointed out, of course, that coverage on MSNBC and CNN had been virtually nil regarding the rape. However, it is nice to see that fact wiggle its way into an otherwise heavily slanted piece about Fox News.